sales

Want to increase your commercial banking sales?

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

It’s easy to overlook the humble email. When you’re serving your commercial banking customers, that doesn’t leave much time. So, there it sits, one line in your inbox. In the flurry of new ways of marketing — Social media, viral content, video, interactive entertainment, the email seems like an “also ran.” That’s a shame, as we’re big fans of its simple beauty (and you should be, too).

Used well, email is an elegant way to market to large numbers of people. If you’re providing financial services, it’s also a fantastic method for building trust with your commercial banking customers. Here at RBC, we think the email is something to be celebrated and enjoyed, so let’s explore using it to market your commercial banking operation.

Why the email is more than just something to delete… So, why do we love the email so very, very much? Glad you asked.

It’s a low-impact way to get attention. The email is one of the more innocuous ways to grab attention, and it can be one of the most useful. You only need to craft a great email once (and hey, we can help with that). Then you can land this wondrous creation in people’s inboxes and enjoy the responses it brings. Email is less “in your face” than other types of promotion or advertising, so it’s perfectly suited to commercial banking, with its sensible and sober approach to managing money.

You can share really useful stuff that matters to people. Emails aren’t all about selling. In fact, if you make them too “salesy,” there’s a good chance they’ll get caught in a spam filter or simply deleted. No, the art of the great email is to build trust over time, and you do that by adding real value.

When you’re marketing to commercial banking customers, they need information and support. Give them insights into their industry, provide financial calculators and favorable terms. Share advice on good financial management and business admin. Providing tools and other useful services means they’ll think favorably of your bank. That really helps when it comes to trust and brand recognition.

Emails are great for embedding messages and links. A good email is never “just” an email. It likely contains engaging imagery and links to further useful information. You can make emails interactive and fun, provide access to your commercial banking products and services, share news and online information, and showcase everything your bank does.

They’re really (really) cheap to send. The cost of sending an email is, effectively, zero. This makes them one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. Yes, you’ll need to pay to develop really good email copy, but that’s likely to be much less than the cost of other types of marketing. And once that copy is created, it’s there for you, whenever you want to run your next commercial banking marketing campaign.

You can reach lots of people. When you’ve been building an email list over time (and you are building an email list, right?) you’ll have thousands of people you can contact. With clever mail merging and personalization, you can tailor your email to each individual business recipient, increasing the chance they’ll open and interact with it.

Now, we know the email isn’t perfect. People get far too many emails, so yours needs to stand out, and that means influencing your readers to open your messages. We can help with that — A combination of the right content, delivered at the perfect time, with a compelling subject line can significantly enhance your open rates and help you sell more commercial banking products.

Get in touch with us today, and let us start a quiet revolution in your bank. We’ll change how you think about and use email to spread the word.

Want to increase your commercial banking sales? Read More »

When salespeople fail, it might not be their fault

Leave a Comment / Culture, Must Read Blogs, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

Being a salesperson is a tough job. Trying to convince the public they really need a product or service is very challenging, and with a cold-call conversion rate some way below 1%, it’s (very) often a thankless task.

You don’t shrink from a challenge though, especially when your business needs to hire great salespeople to survive. So, you read up on hiring theory and practice, read endless resumes, conduct interviews, and hire candidates who are so red-hot their personalities could power small towns.

Three months later, and they’re not exactly living up to expectations. Their conversion rates are the pits, their pitches are more like strikeouts, and the client list you dreamed of is just a wish list. You were told to hire for attitude, and everything else would follow, just what went wrong?

Here’s the truth, and it’s an uncomfortable one — It may not be down to your salespeople. At all.

It’s easy to assume that if you aren’t making sales, it’s your salespeople at fault. In fact, much of the time, it’s the systems, support structures, and training that determine how successful your salespeople are. If your people are failing, explore these areas and see if the problem might lay elsewhere…

Your prospects lists – A salesperson is only as good as the prospects they have access to. Do you have a superb, highly converting prospect list? Do you have the Glengarry leads? Option 1: Spend some time, effort, and money to acquire high-quality, cleansed prospect lists and your salespeople will thank you. Option 2: Work with your team to develop a solid prospecting system using LinkedIn, networking group, associations and centers of influence. Option 3 – a Combination thereof.

Your sales system – Does the software you use to track leads and sales support your salespeople? Is it easy to access from everywhere, does it give them information at their fingertips? Ask your salespeople what they think of the software and how it could be improved. PS – Post it notes do NOT count as a CRM tool and frankly neither do spread sheets.

Your sales process – Your sales process is about more than just the software you use. It’s all of the admin, handoffs, interactions, and other hoops salespeople need to jump through to get things done. If your sales process isn’t as efficient as possible, it can massively drag down your sales numbers. Look at every part of your sales process to see if it could be improved. BTW – all sales systems and processes should be written in manual format and managed to. Sales is indeed….a process whether you are selling widgets or wombats the process is essentially the same.

Your training – Great salespeople are made, not born. Yes, they need to have the right attitude, but they also need the right skills. That comes from training. Provide training on your products and services, the psychology of selling, negotiation skills, and whatever else your salespeople need to become experts. Training needs to be ongoing – it isn’t one and done. During your weekly sales meetings (yes you need them), have debriefs on accounts won and more importantly on accounts lost. What can the team learn?

Your incentives – People need to be incentivized in the right way. This isn’t just pay and salary, it’s opportunities for career advancement, providing constructive feedback, having a good work environment, and ensuring your employees are cared for. Can we say equity? Many salespeople have an entrepreneurial spirit – at least the top dogs do. If your company structure allows for it – why not offer some equity based on performance?

Your management – Is your management process as streamlined as it could be? Remove as many layers from management as you can and give your salespeople more autonomy. Assign well-performing salespeople as mentors to help teach new hires the ropes.

If you’re able to tweak and improve some or all of these areas, you’ll start to see big improvements in conversions and sales. Spend some time, effort, and money on these vital functions now, and you’ll create better equipped, motivated, and trained sales reps who can sell more stuff!

When salespeople fail, it might not be their fault Read More »

Why You Should Be Using Drip Campaigns

Leave a Comment / Marketing, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , , , , , , , , ,

When someone subscribes to your email list, it’s important to capture their newfound interest by making a strong connection. The best marketers use drip campaigns to quickly interact with new fans in a short period of time.

A drip campaign is an automated series of emails sent to your subscribers. The emails are sent on a specific timeline or based on user actions. There’s no denying their effectiveness. The email marketing app Emma found that targeted emails are far more likely to earn clicks than general broadcast emails. In fact, links in drip emails are clicked 119% more often.

Drip campaigns typically begin with a welcome email that reminds the fan how they signed up and what they can expect from you. Further emails can take different shapes depending on your goals. A campaign may introduce your fans to your best content or answer common questions about your product or service. Some campaigns are almost entirely educational, designed to deliver tremendous value to subscribers.

\"Drip

The most common structure of drip campaigns is called lead nurturing: an email course that solves a subscriber’s problem. The fan signs up on your website because he’s interested in the information you promise. They involve five to seven emails with a two-day delay between each. Marketing automation experts at Drip report that lead nurturing creates 50% more customers ready to buy.

Throughout the emails, the campaign offers information that soothes the reader’s pain points. Each email should end with a call to action, usually a link to additional content or offers on your website.

Toward the end of the course, position your product or service as a logical solution to the problem with calls to action that encourage the visitor to sign up. By this point, you should have offered enough value that the reader considers you an expert.

As you begin to craft your email series, use these guidelines.

DO understand your reader. You have to create your copy to solve their problems. First, you have to know what their problems are.

DON’T be sales-y right away. If you hit your fan too hard with sales copy, you’ll turn them off from the experience. You must provide value first.

DO end every email with a call to action. Just because they’re done reading doesn’t mean they’re done engaging. This can be a link to a blog post, a social action (like, share, follow, etc.), or a link to a landing page.

DON’T rush the reader down the buyer’s journey. For instance, content that compares your service to competitors should come after you convince the user they need a service like yours in the first place.

DO move the user into your broadcast list once the drip campaign has completed. Most email marketing applications offer procedures like this.

We\’d love to hear your feedback on drip campaigns – on successes, failures, or even programs that you like or dislike.

Why You Should Be Using Drip Campaigns Read More »

Delight Your Customers

Leave a Comment / Culture, Sales, Uncategorized / By / / , ,

We’re all familiar with the 10 commandments of customer service: The customer is always right, know your customers, listen to your customers, etc. But in a world when news and opinions are widely shared on social media and stories go viral on the internet, why not delight your customers.

ReferralCandy, which operates a customer referral software program, compiled a list of 17 examples of how companies gave their customers something to rave about. The online publicity and word-of-mouth buzz these companies generated for customer service is epic.

Here are 5 of the best of the list. Enjoy.

Taco Bell’s “Operation Alaska”

“Yoquiero Taco Bell”A remote Alaskan town craving tacos was devastated when plans to open a Taco Bell turned out to be a hoax. When the restaurant chain heard about the cruel joke, it air lifted ingredients for 10,000 Doritos Locos tacos.

A Porterhouse steak would be nice

Before boarding his plane, Peter Shankman, an angel investor, tweeted to Morton’s Steakhouse Twitter account that he’d love a porterhouse steak waiting for him when he landed in New Jersey. He found one at the baggage claim, free of charge.

Virgin Trains has got your back

A teen trapped without toilet paper on a Virgin train from London to Glasgow tweets for help. A Virgin Trains social media staffer reads his tweet and sends a train employee to give him a loo roll.

Trader Joe’sto the rescue

Trader Joe’s in Wayne, Pennsylvania sent someone out in the middle of a winter storm to deliver groceries to an 89-year-old veteran. The man’s daughter frantically called several stores in the area trying to get groceries delivered. Trader Joe’s, which doesn’t deliver, brought the groceries to the man and didn’t charge him.

Zappos delivers shoes to woman for free

A women checks into a Las Vegas hotel and discovers she forgot to pack her favorite shoes. She tries ordering them online from Zappos, but they are out of stock. When she calls Zappos’ customer service for help, an employee buys her the shoes at another store and delivers them to her hotel room, free of charge.

You can read the full list of customer service feats here.

Need help generating visibility and buzz for your company. Click Red Barn for our contact info.

Delight Your Customers Read More »